(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention refers to a method for activating SIM cards for use in mobile telephones.
(2) Description of Related Art
Every installed, inactive, subscription involving a SIM card generates license costs and other costs for resources consumed for the operators of mobile networks. This is also true for SIM cards not activated for some time or even cards that are not activated at all. This is especially true for cards that are used for prepaid mobile telephone services. Such cards, prepaid cards, are stored in large amounts at non-controllable point-of-sales locations, waiting to get sold. When manufactured, such a card is provided with information in order to make it possible to use the card immediately after that the card has been sold. Therefore, also the mobile telephone operator stores information related to each card in the operators HLR (Home Location Register) and AUC (Authentication Center), such as the cards IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity).
The cost for an operator is dependent on the number of cards registered in the mobile system. Manufacturing, handling, logistics and storage of SIM cards also represents costs to the mobile operator. This cost increases significantly when the amount of different SIM card types that are handled by the operator increases.
It is thus essential to the mobile operator to keep the amount of different SIM cars types to a minimum, ideally to one type only.
A multinational operator can e.g. have several PLMNs (Public Land Mobile Network) within a region all having own SIM cards with own IMSI series and/or different MSISDNs which are the catalogue number, i.e. the telephone number depending on which geographical area the subscriber belongs to.
In certain countries the operator may even be obliged to be able to provide at any point of sale in the country, an applicable, usable SIM card to a subscriber who has lost or broken the SIM card. This implies major costs to the operators.
The present invention solves the problem of having many inactive subscriptions in the system by activating the SIM cards when the subscriber is going active for the first time.